About

About the book:The Presidents is a collection of brief stories from the lives of the 44 American presidents, each transcribed from one of C-SPAN's interviews. These accounts vary as much as the men who have inhabited the office. Not intended as definitive biographies, the scholarship of each featured author provides snapshots into life events that shaped our leaders, challenges they faced, and the legacies they've left.

About the website: To accompany The Presidents, we built this website to help you continue your exploration into the office of the presidency. Learn more about the historians we interviewed and watch them discuss the presidents with links to their full interviews; discover more about each chief executive with facts and links; and test your knowledge with a fun quiz.

Presidents, in the book and on the website, are not listed in chronological order. Instead, they are organized by their most recent score in C-SPAN's widely recognized Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership. In 2017, presidential historians rated each leader on 10 qualities of presidential leadership. Prior surveys were conducted in 2000 and 2009. Contemporary presidents are not included in the survey until they leave office, so President Trump has not yet been ranked.

Events

Join us as authors Brian Lamb and Susan Swain, along with some noted historians, discuss The Presidents. Each event link provides more information on how to attend. C-SPAN will televise some of these events, and the link to the video will be added once the events have taken place.